


mr. cellophane

by MalkyTop



Series: he is beauty he is grace that's a lie please save this man from himself [14]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, just a weird concept i wanted to write down, no nothing else after this sorry, weird devil fruit shit, you can imagine what comes next
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-10-30 21:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10884876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalkyTop/pseuds/MalkyTop
Summary: they've never picked up a cook, but meals are somehow prepared regardless.





	mr. cellophane

**Author's Note:**

> Weird idea I had. Dunno how good this is, but here it is anyways.

The bell rang for dinner and the next second, Luffy slammed into the door, opened it, and zoomed to the laden table. The rest of his crew had managed to squeeze themselves in and grab their own rations with a speed honed by experience, and the meal commenced like an eating contest until Luffy sat back with a sigh and a loud, “That’s good!”

Nobody answered, because there was nobody to accept the compliment.

Sure enough, Luffy flexed his fingers and trilled, “Thanks for the food~” and dug in once more. Like usual, any time his hands strayed too close to anybody’s plate, his head would snap back, like some invisible force had punched it, and he’d fall out of his chair, only to scrabble back up and at it again. Once the plates were empty, someone would volunteer to wash the dishes, only to find that the pots and pans were already dried and many of the dishes already in the sink. The process would repeat for every single meal, even for snacks.

Where the meals came from was one of the greatest mysteries of the Thousand Sunny. None of the crew actually cooked (and thank goodness for that), so none of them could really complain, but it was a question that came up regularly.

There were a few theories, of course. Usopp suggested a klabautermann, but Franky pointed out that they weren’t known for cooking, and besides, as much as the idea tickled him, he wasn’t sure the Sunny was old enough to grow one quite yet. Brook was afraid it was a ghost. Luffy just called it a mystery and left it at that.

The other mystery of the ship were the intermittent notes they would find, all of them displaying the message to kill Lithe Domina – an enemy they had encountered a while back. But the most disconcerting thing about the notes were that the handwriting was always recognizable as one crew member or the other, even though nobody remembered ever writing something like that. This was a less beneficial mystery, one that weighed a little heavy on the more superstitious members of the crew.

It was a subject that Robin had been researching for a while, given how little she liked being in the dark, and a subject that she was researching right now in the library.

The clatter of a book falling from a shelf sent her to her feet, arms already launching themselves at the sound, only to find nothing there.

Maybe there was a ghost. At least it hasn’t torn anybody asunder so far.

Robin allowed herself to chuckle as she stood up and checked what book had fallen. It was a book on North Blue mythology. The cover was well-worn, though she wasn’t sure by whom. Flipping through the pages, she settled on a bookmarked chapter of the All Blue.

Looking up, she saw Sanji patiently holding the other side of the book, but his expression turned to surprise when her eyes locked onto his and he let go. “R-Robin-chan?”

“Sanji,” she breathed out, her brow furrowing even as she felt a flutter of relief. Sanji was here! She thought he wasn’t – no, she had _forgotten,_ and how could that even happen, how could she,

She didn’t realize she was turning towards the door until Sanji grabbed her wrist. “Wait,” he said, and that one word pricked Robin’s lips until all the questions just burst out.

“What’s going on? Why didn’t I remember you? How is it that none of us can see or sense you in any way? Are you alright?”

Sanji smiled at her, but the smile didn’t fit the situation and failed to reassure. He let go and raised his hands. “I’m fine. Why don’t we catch up?”

“’Catch up!’ How long has this been going on?” Robin demanded, and Sanji’s smile faltered before dropping completely. He sighed, looked away.

“Robin-chan, please. This is,” his shoulders fell a bit, “a rare occasion. You’ll...you’ll forget again, soon. I’d rather talk about...”

“Sanji,” she said, voice stern.

He sighed again, but in the end, it wasn’t like he could stand up to her. Still looking to the side, he said, “Some shithead with a devil fruit got me.”

One of the mysteries floated up to her mind. “Lithe Domina.”

Sanji nodded. “Something about forgetting. I thought it would make me forget something, but,” he chuckled, “actually it made everybody forget me.”

It didn’t make any sense. How could they not even see him, if that’s the case? Did the fruit just make them forget they ever saw him, second by second? Was it really that powerful? But most of all, “Why are you so calm about this?”

“It’s fine,” Sanji said, ridiculously. “I’m fine. It’ll wear off, eventually. If he dies...”

“I’ll kill him.”

This was a certainty, now. She had to. The book was still in her hands and she flipped to the publication page and pushed it towards Sanji. “Write a message. If I see your handwriting, perhaps I’ll remember – “

Sanji grabbed the book out of reflex but shook his head. “I don’t know what makes you guys see me again, but it’s never the same thing. I’m sorry, but...you can’t help me.”

She didn’t like the way he looked, not sad, not angry, not anything. Just tranquil acceptance in his eyes, soft determination to just live out his days as if this was a problem to wait out. Robin pushed a pen into his chest. “Write the date and time. It’s two-twenty. Write a message.”

Sanji sighed but did as she asked and chose a blank corner, scrawling with his long, spindly handwriting. She took it back when he was done and frowned at the sparse words. ‘Library. Book fell. Sanji.’ She strode back to the couch, Sanji trailing behind, and sat down and wrote a bit more, then underlined Sanji’s name for good measure.

She looked back up to Sanji to ask how long this usually lasted, but saw nobody. She looked back down. Someone had written in a book, and she frowned, only to frown deeper when she saw that at least part of the writing was her own. The cover told her it was a book on North Blue mythology, though she didn’t know why the ship would have one, given nobody on the crew was from there. She flipped back to the message.

One half of it was in an unrecognizable handwriting for some reason. It definitely didn’t look like her own. The message read the current time and predicted the book falling off the shelf. Then, ‘Sanji. Kill Lithe Domina.”

There it was again. The same message that kept turning up. What did ‘Sanji’ mean? Three o’clock? Was the message predicting something to happen at three?

Well, whether it would happen or not, she would be prepared. And she supposed she wouldn’t object to killing Lithe Domina, but it wasn’t like they would run into each other again any time soon. It’s been months, after all.

Robin put the book back on the shelf. At three o’clock, the bell rang for snacks.


End file.
